5 ms·

"The cargo version can also be used for rapid point-to-point Earth transport." Why no one is talking about this. This will be game changer if can be done with

by Ballu 6y ago

"The cargo version can also be used for rapid point-to-point Earth transport." Why no one is talking about this. This will be game changer if can be done with bigger payload. There are models created earlier that using rocket technology/mechanism, LA-HK can be reached in 2 hours. This can have huge impact on avionics esp with trade.

HenryKissinger 6y ago
If it's not cheaper than overseas shipping or cargo aircraft, it won't work. It's basic economics.
- Octoth0rpe 6y ago
  That doesn't take into account the speed of delivery. There may be some customer out there that doesn't know when they need something delivered, but once they know, they'd be willing to pay an extravagant amount of money to have whatever it is there in 30 minutes. The most immediate thing I can think of is a bomb, which is pretty much exactly that need :) But there may be other use cases with similar required delivery times.
  - kolinko 6y ago
    Amazon Prime Now, but for shipping cars and anywhere on the planet? :)
    - Octoth0rpe 6y ago
      This is SpaceX, they have literally shipped cars _off_ of the planet as well :P
- betwixthewires 6y ago
  Man, people have been citing "basic economics" at musk for over a decade. You can't break into the US automotive industry with an independent startup, you can't cut launch costs by an order of magnitude, there's no market for a global constellation of LEO networking satellites, you can't double the number of sattelites in orbit in 5 years, the list goes on. I don't bet against Elon Musk anymore. If you've ever paid more for quicker shipping, there's a market for this.
  - lukeify 6y ago
    To be fair, SpaceX hasn't cut costs by an order of magnitude. They've made things significantly cheaper, but the list price for a barebones Falcon 9 is about $50-60m, while an Atlas V is around $100-120m.
    - ericd 6y ago
      Well, they’re targeting launching much more mass than F9 for a much lower cost with Starship (<$10M). So not done yet, but it seems like they have a good shot at it. And if they pull off orbital refueling, then they can take those huge amounts of mass to geo and beyond.
      - lukeify 6y ago
        Correct, but that's a forward-looking statement. The comment I was replying to was written in the past-tense.
        betwixthewires 6y ago
        Yeah, you're right, I put some "haven't quite happened yet" stuff in there, but the point I was making was that there was a time when discounting the man was the rational thing to do, at this point I think he's proven his ability to do what he says he's going to do, and the ones I stretched a little are well on their way to happening.
digdigdag 6y ago
Ask yourself -- what object would be so massive and heavy and yet needed with such immediacy that a company would be willing to pay millions -- perhaps beyond the cost of the object itself -- to ship in a sub-orbital manner? Large and critical infrastructure components like generators, large piping and ducts, etc. are already transported at a fraction of the cost by the likes of the AN-225 Mirya within a matter of hours. What would shaving 15-24 hours in shipping times do for a project?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- jessriedel 6y ago
  Military definitely. Commercial passenger travel possibly.
- astrange 6y ago
  This could be a case of supply creating its own demand.
- neaanopri 6y ago
  I mean there's not _no_ market, but I agree it's specialized. I could see this capability making sense for high-value, time-sensitive construction projects, such as oil rigs or wind turbines. Also, the "global" nature may lend itself to container ship salvage or search and rescue. Esp. if the Starship doesn't need to turn around immediately, I can see a market for that. All of these seem like they will need special-purpose custom Starships operated by a non SpaceX entity.
- inglor_cz 6y ago
  You are concentrating only on speed and possibly cost. But there is another thing to consider. For military use, the fact that you do not need consent of third states to use their infrastructure and can support operations on the other side of the globe directly, is golden. Remember the Yom Kippur War in 1973. Everyone who helped Israel was subject to Arab oil embargo, AFAIK including countries that just allowed American Israel-bound planes to land and refuel. Similar things may happen again somewhere around South China Sea.
elihu 6y ago
That seems very expensive and inefficient compared to planes or ships. What's the use case you're imagining where a plane is just too slow? The only thing I can think of is if some service like FedEx can amortize the cost of the launch across a very large number of low-mass items and charge a premium for fast delivery. Still, I'd assume that this would use vastly more fuel per mass of cargo moved than a plane, and should probably be avoided for CO2 emission reasons even if it works out economically. Is my assumption wrong?
- fastball 6y ago
  SpaceX's goal[1] is to be able to ship people for around the cost of a business-class ticket[2] to the same destination. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqE-ultsWt0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqE-ultsWt0 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dar8P3r7GYA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dar8P3r7GYA
- renewiltord 6y ago
  Sometimes it isn't speed. Sometimes it's about not having to go through everything in between.
- skykooler 6y ago
  The last time I remember seeing calculations on this, it worked out that it does use more fuel per kilogram than a cargo plane, but only about 1.5x as much - the reason being that the starship spends most of its flight coasting with nearly zero drag, which an airplane has to fight drag in the atmosphere the whole way to its destination.
  - elihu 6y ago
    Huh, that's interesting and completely at odds with my intuition. If it works out like that maybe it is an economically and (sort of) environmentally viable option.
fy20 6y ago
For cargo I don't really see how it could have that much on an impact. Using aircraft we can already transport large volumes of items fairly quickly around the world, yet most freight is still transported by sea because it's cheaper. A standard '96" pallet' on aircraft is 317cm x 244cm x 244cm (125" x 96" x 96") and can hold 6,804 kg (15,000lb). Specialised aircraft can carry even more - some aircraft can transport trains! The only place where I could see needing to ship stuff quicker - that could actually afford it as I'm guessing it won't be cheap - would be the military. I'm not sure that's nessasarily a good thing though...
- cromwellian 6y ago
  Starship carries 100 metric tons, a C-17 only about 70, but can get there in 90 minutes, which could be critical for the military.
  - sam_bristow 6y ago
    But does that include the load-out time? I'd imaging the process for loading a C-17 and getting it in the air is much quicker than for this Starship.
    - mattashii 6y ago
      I'd expect loading+unloading to be similar in duration once the program has developed far enough. The limiting factor that I think is prohibitively limiting starship from dropshipping cargo, is the need for a landing (and launch!) site, an optional SH booster for the return flight and 1200 tons of methalox fuel to get the ship back to base for reuse (4800 with SH booster). So it'd need the rocket equivalent of an airplane carrier, which has not been developed yet.
fastball 6y ago
Pretty sure it would be much faster than 2 hours (at least of flight time).

by Ballu 6y ago

HenryKissinger 6y ago

If it's not cheaper than overseas shipping or cargo aircraft, it won't work. It's basic economics.

Octoth0rpe 6y ago
That doesn't take into account the speed of delivery. There may be some customer out there that doesn't know when they need something delivered, but once they know, they'd be willing to pay an extravagant amount of money to have whatever it is there in 30 minutes. The most immediate thing I can think of is a bomb, which is pretty much exactly that need :) But there may be other use cases with similar required delivery times.
- kolinko 6y ago
  Amazon Prime Now, but for shipping cars and anywhere on the planet? :)
  - Octoth0rpe 6y ago
    This is SpaceX, they have literally shipped cars _off_ of the planet as well :P
betwixthewires 6y ago
Man, people have been citing "basic economics" at musk for over a decade. You can't break into the US automotive industry with an independent startup, you can't cut launch costs by an order of magnitude, there's no market for a global constellation of LEO networking satellites, you can't double the number of sattelites in orbit in 5 years, the list goes on. I don't bet against Elon Musk anymore. If you've ever paid more for quicker shipping, there's a market for this.
- lukeify 6y ago
  To be fair, SpaceX hasn't cut costs by an order of magnitude. They've made things significantly cheaper, but the list price for a barebones Falcon 9 is about $50-60m, while an Atlas V is around $100-120m.
  - ericd 6y ago
    Well, they’re targeting launching much more mass than F9 for a much lower cost with Starship (<$10M). So not done yet, but it seems like they have a good shot at it. And if they pull off orbital refueling, then they can take those huge amounts of mass to geo and beyond.
    - lukeify 6y ago
      Correct, but that's a forward-looking statement. The comment I was replying to was written in the past-tense.
      - betwixthewires 6y ago
        Yeah, you're right, I put some "haven't quite happened yet" stuff in there, but the point I was making was that there was a time when discounting the man was the rational thing to do, at this point I think he's proven his ability to do what he says he's going to do, and the ones I stretched a little are well on their way to happening.

digdigdag 6y ago

Ask yourself -- what object would be so massive and heavy and yet needed with such immediacy that a company would be willing to pay millions -- perhaps beyond the cost of the object itself -- to ship in a sub-orbital manner? Large and critical infrastructure components like generators, large piping and ducts, etc. are already transported at a fraction of the cost by the likes of the AN-225 Mirya within a matter of hours. What would shaving 15-24 hours in shipping times do for a project?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
jessriedel 6y ago
Military definitely. Commercial passenger travel possibly.
astrange 6y ago
This could be a case of supply creating its own demand.
neaanopri 6y ago
I mean there's not _no_ market, but I agree it's specialized. I could see this capability making sense for high-value, time-sensitive construction projects, such as oil rigs or wind turbines. Also, the "global" nature may lend itself to container ship salvage or search and rescue. Esp. if the Starship doesn't need to turn around immediately, I can see a market for that. All of these seem like they will need special-purpose custom Starships operated by a non SpaceX entity.
inglor_cz 6y ago
You are concentrating only on speed and possibly cost. But there is another thing to consider. For military use, the fact that you do not need consent of third states to use their infrastructure and can support operations on the other side of the globe directly, is golden. Remember the Yom Kippur War in 1973. Everyone who helped Israel was subject to Arab oil embargo, AFAIK including countries that just allowed American Israel-bound planes to land and refuel. Similar things may happen again somewhere around South China Sea.

elihu 6y ago

That seems very expensive and inefficient compared to planes or ships. What's the use case you're imagining where a plane is just too slow? The only thing I can think of is if some service like FedEx can amortize the cost of the launch across a very large number of low-mass items and charge a premium for fast delivery. Still, I'd assume that this would use vastly more fuel per mass of cargo moved than a plane, and should probably be avoided for CO2 emission reasons even if it works out economically. Is my assumption wrong?

fastball 6y ago
SpaceX's goal[1] is to be able to ship people for around the cost of a business-class ticket[2] to the same destination. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqE-ultsWt0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqE-ultsWt0 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dar8P3r7GYA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dar8P3r7GYA
renewiltord 6y ago
Sometimes it isn't speed. Sometimes it's about not having to go through everything in between.
skykooler 6y ago
The last time I remember seeing calculations on this, it worked out that it does use more fuel per kilogram than a cargo plane, but only about 1.5x as much - the reason being that the starship spends most of its flight coasting with nearly zero drag, which an airplane has to fight drag in the atmosphere the whole way to its destination.
- elihu 6y ago
  Huh, that's interesting and completely at odds with my intuition. If it works out like that maybe it is an economically and (sort of) environmentally viable option.

fy20 6y ago

For cargo I don't really see how it could have that much on an impact. Using aircraft we can already transport large volumes of items fairly quickly around the world, yet most freight is still transported by sea because it's cheaper. A standard '96" pallet' on aircraft is 317cm x 244cm x 244cm (125" x 96" x 96") and can hold 6,804 kg (15,000lb). Specialised aircraft can carry even more - some aircraft can transport trains! The only place where I could see needing to ship stuff quicker - that could actually afford it as I'm guessing it won't be cheap - would be the military. I'm not sure that's nessasarily a good thing though...

cromwellian 6y ago
Starship carries 100 metric tons, a C-17 only about 70, but can get there in 90 minutes, which could be critical for the military.
- sam_bristow 6y ago
  But does that include the load-out time? I'd imaging the process for loading a C-17 and getting it in the air is much quicker than for this Starship.
  - mattashii 6y ago
    I'd expect loading+unloading to be similar in duration once the program has developed far enough. The limiting factor that I think is prohibitively limiting starship from dropshipping cargo, is the need for a landing (and launch!) site, an optional SH booster for the return flight and 1200 tons of methalox fuel to get the ship back to base for reuse (4800 with SH booster). So it'd need the rocket equivalent of an airplane carrier, which has not been developed yet.

fastball 6y ago

Pretty sure it would be much faster than 2 hours (at least of flight time).